Trying to get the gill nets banned on Chickamauga Lake

[scn]

From my experience, additional laws have very limited effect on the people already break laws.

While I tend to agree, you cant really hide these nets. It hard work that takes hours to set and retrieve. Ive never heard of any being run on closed waters also.

Open or closed waters don't matter to some. In the mid-eighties there was a group caught illegally netting Center Hill for paddlefish. They lived in a cave through the winter months and only came out at night to fish. Our officers finally caught them with a little bit of luck and a lot of cold, hard hours on the water.

And, the nets are hidden all the time. Some comercial fishermen do it to otherwise legal sets to keep sport fishermen from messing with their gear. Side-scan sonar does a pretty good job of picking them up, but at times it involves a lot of "dragging".

 

[bigfish21]

This past March I came upon the illegal nets in Purser Slough just down from Cotton Port. There was 6 nets stretched completely across the the slough going in from about 100 yard in off the river all the way to the back where it opens up past the 4 way leading Spence. Once in the back there was another 9 nets in different areas with some almost reaching all the way across. None of these net were mark with any Identification and no I wasnt pulling them up to check but when you have to go over top of them just to get in there so you can fish, a man gets a pretty good look at them. They was numerous bass as well as crappie floating up in these nets. I called and reported them also but when I was getting ready to leave the guys came in picking some of them up. I couldn't get their boat numbers but I did give TWRA a description of the boat.

 

[TheRealSpurhunter]

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